After the Tesco Bank hack, it's time for a minister for cyber security

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Tesco Bank was forced to block some customers' cards after "suspicious activity" was detected by its fraud prevention systemCredit:
Andrew Milligan/ PA

Forget old-fashioned recessions or political upsets: they are analogue threats in a digital world. They still matter of course, but we’ve learnt how to deal with them over the decades. It is cyber-attacks that should truly worry the corporate world, economists and politicians.

Everybody talks about these all the time, but few businesses or governments have truly got on top of them. One of these days the UK is bound to be hit by a truly massive, co-ordinated attack, with devastating consequences.

The number of incidents across the world is growing all the time, as is their gravity. The US presidential elections have been overshadowed by data theft, with emails being dumped online; the final outcome...